ABC’s Jon Karl Repeatedly Grills Steve Scalise: Does Trump Bear Responsibility for Capitol Riots?

ABC’s Jon Karl pressed House Minority Whip Steve Scalise with an intense series of questions about Donald Trump’s responsibility for the storming of the Capitol after his repeated delegitimization of the 2020 election.

During an interview Scalise gave Karl on Sunday for This Week, the ABC anchor brought up the fundraising meeting Scalise had with the former president last week at Mar-a-Lago. This trip comes after Kevin McCarthy also visited Trump, and Karl framed the conversation by noting that the House Minority Leader once said that the former president “bears responsibility” for the storming of the Capitol by his supporters.

This led to Karl asking Scalise, “Did you ask [Trump] to take responsibility? Did he take responsibility?” Scalise sidestepped the question in order to defend the meeting, so Karl pressed him again on the question of Trump’s responsibility for the storming of the Capitol.

Scalies responded by referring to a Wall Street Journal editorial he wrote which compared the Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol to the man who nearly killed him during the 2017 Congressional baseball shooting.

“Surely there’s a lot of blame to go around,” Scalise said before diverting in order to say that those who broke into Congress should be held accountable for their actions.

“That’s obvious,” Karl replied. “I’m asking about Donald Trump’s role in this… Does he bear responsibility for what happened?”

Scalise reacted by complaining about Democrats’ repeated attempts to impeach Trump, then by likening their rhetoric to that of the former president.

“So you’re saying he doesn’t bear responsibility?” Karl asked.

“Look, President Trump has denounced what happened,” Scalise said, before Karl countered that Trump “did not denounce what happened on January 6th, on January 6th.”

Karl moved on from there by asking Scalise if he agrees that the 2020 election “was not stolen,” and that Joe Biden is the legitimate president. Scalise answered that “Joe Biden’s the president,” then went on about how “there were a few states that did not follow their state laws. That’s really the dispute that you’ve seen continue on.”

To that, Karl pressed Scalise to answer a “very simple question:”

“I asked you: is he is the legitimate president of the United States and do you concede this election was not stolen?”

“Once the electors are counted, yes, he’s the legitimate president,” Scalise said. “Look, you can rehash the election from 2020 all day long, but there are people concerned about what the next election is going to look like. Are we finally gonna back to the way of rule of law works? And I think that’s the biggest frustration people have. Those states that didn’t follow the law, are they gonna keep doing that in the future or are we gonna get back to the what the Constitution calls out for electing our leaders?”

Watch above, via ABC.